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by Adam Pash

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We like to preach from the pulpit of Life Hacks that technology is supposed to make us more productive. As our motto so eloquently puts it: Don't live to geek; geek to live.

The thing is, even if you do "geek to live," chances are you still might be a bit of a geek. After spending a weekend with the awesome DIYers, hackers, and artists at the first ever Maker Faire in San Mateo this weekend, living to geek has never seemed cooler.

DIY for computers and technology

This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.

For all the awe and respect I have for the know-how and elbow grease it takes to accomplish some of the most difficult DIY projects, I'm always going to be a fan of those that nearly anyone can do. That's why one of my favorite projects at the fair was this simple method for converting a $60 router into a $600 router (PDF alert!) with a firmware upgrade. The router in question is the fairly ubiquitous Linksys WRT54G. Simple, powerful, and nearly anyone can do it.

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Of course, there was a lot of great stuff at the Maker Faire that I would have no idea how to do but can easily appreciate and enjoy. In the computers/technology realm, I really admired the custom retro handsets that the guys from DIY:Happy put together, who turned run-of-the-mill landline phones into cordless and wireless headsets with cell phone and bluetooth hacking. Also on the wireless front, I sat in on a very cool presentation by Ralf Muehlen of SFLan on setting up your own wireless LAN community (check out the site if you're interesting in doing something like this yourself).

This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.

Although not particularly DIY, I got a chance to check out a few of Microsoft's upcoming Origami/Ultra-Mobile PC prototypes, which are intended to bridge the gap between PocketPCs and laptops, running a full-fledged version of XP. While it's great to have a relatively small device that can run anything your Windows box can, I can say that if that work requires any typing, the on-screen keyboard, which looks good in theory, is unfortunately a major pain to use. I'm not sure the PocketPC to laptop gap is one that really needs filling.

Another huge hit was Sunday afternoon's presentation by O'Reilly's Scott Gray on making paper airplanes. You'd be amazed at what one man can do with a piece of paper.

DIY for travel and energy in the 21st century

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Travel and alternative energy was big at this year's Faire, and probably the most notable showing went to the people from ZAP! (Zero Air Pollution), whose electric cars, scooters, ATVs, and portable energy devices were all over the fair.

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Of course not all travel and alternative energy needs to be practical, but the Maker Faire is all about DIY, right? In that vein, I was quite pleased to see a number of very cool and inventive hacked-up bicycles (like the very cool bicycle ferris wheel - see video below).

If impractical, totally non-traditional forms of transportation are more your style, you would have loved the giant electric giraffe.

DIY for the rest of us

Of all the presentations I checked out at the Maker Faire, I found none more promising than the presentation by Instructables co-founder Eric Wilhelm, who described Instructables as working towards the goal of open source hardware. By lowering the threshold of documentation (his words), Instructables hopes in turn to lower the threshold for participating and MAKE-ing. Sounds like a nice world to me, especially as someone who's never found a particularly easy jumping-off point for getting down and dirty with hardware DIY.

Adam Pash is an associate editor for Lifehacker who has put serious thought into learning to solder. His special feature Hack Attack appears every Tuesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.